


Prometheus: Flatline

by SociopathicArchangel



Series: 25 Lives [3]
Category: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (Short Film)
Genre: 25 lives AU, F/M, direct sequel to bleedout, one thing you should know about me is that you should pay attention to almost everything i write, still cannot grasp the fact that i'm posting this here, there are a lot of keys everywhere you just need to know where to look
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 09:33:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3805483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SociopathicArchangel/pseuds/SociopathicArchangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1,2,3. <br/>1, 2, 3 – drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prometheus: Flatline

The ticking of the clock has been so commonplace that it’s like a lullaby to her now. It’s been – what, two, three days? She’s never been one to keep track of time before all of this, and she wasn’t going to start now, especially when she’s barely interested in eating.

In the same amount of time she’s spent sitting on her bed with her knees to her chest, she also hasn’t spoken a word and has discovered that her ears can pick up the faintest of sounds when she tries to. There’s the familiar soft footsteps outside her door, the placing of a tray on the carpeted hallway that really shouldn’t make any sound and then faint shuffling of clothes as the human walks away.

She leaps from her bed, storms to her door and nearly rips it off its hinges.

Manny squeaks as he turns to her with wide eyes.

“Would you – ” her voice is scratchy. She clears her throat, “Would you just stop doing whatever you think is going to help?”

When he opens his mouth, she shoves him away, “Get out of here, damn it!”

“Y-you need to eat.”

“I don’t need _anything!_ ” She kicks the tray near her foot. The plates sail through the air and smash against the floor and the walls, staining the carpet in the process. The metal tray clatters several feet from where it was originally placed.

“Paige – ”

She snarls and punches his jaw. Manny’s neck snaps to the side violently. The loud thumping of feet on the stairs draws nearer as Harry and Robin race up. Robin rushes to her, grabs her arms and twists them behind her back. Harry helps Manny up as he snaps his neck into place and rubs it. Paige thrashes in the younger man’s grip, but her new body’s wrists are infuriatingly fragile and she needs them –

Actually, she doesn’t.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Robin moves both of her hands into one hold and places a hand on her back to push her down. Her face hits the floor quickly and she kicks back, but he’s barely budging.

“Let me go!”

“Not when you’re being so unruly.”

She barks a laugh, “Let me go or I’m going to _rip your heart out, Robin._ ”

She feels him flinch and immediately tries to wrench her arms away, but his nails dig into her skin. Since when was he able to overpower her, anyway?

Paige stops moving after a few minutes. Robin loosens his hold on her and she whirls around, nails scratching his face and peeling off thin strips of skin. Droplets of blood hit the floor.

“Paige!”

Harry doesn’t move from where he’s standing with Manny though. Robin, wide-eyed, turns back to her and his expression turns murderous, intensified with the three slashes across his cheek and blood dripping down from them. She could be hallucinating from lack of food, but his eyes look red –

Robin grabs her by the hair and she barely has time to blink before the syringe is rammed into her neck.

*

The world is a mess when she wakes up. The colors are all smeared together and everything sounds like it’s muffled through water even if the volume is maximized. Paige groans.

“… _’s human!_ You can’t just…careful…not immortal anymore.”

“I know, alright. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“Just…just be less rough next time. You almost broke her arms.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who almost broke her arms; she tried to break them herself!”

She brings up a hand to rub at the sore side of her neck. Robin outright stabbed her with the needle. That little git had probably finally accepted that he had issues and just chose to roll with it.

Her door clicks open and Harry pokes his head in. With all the strength she can muster, she glares at him.

“Get out.”

“Paige – ”

“I said get _out_ , Harry.”

She closes her eyes as pain pulses in her head and everything blackens. She hears the door close.

*

On the fifth day that she’s barricaded herself in her room, she finally gives in to the pain in her stomach and storms down the kitchen to eat. Nobody talks to her and she likes it that way. Immediately after she’s finished, she locks herself in her room again.

Silence is a torture weapon when your mind goes to things it shouldn’t go to.

With her hunger gone and her ability to focus returned, she’s able to think of her situation. Tony (stop, stop, stop. That sentence ends there.) They were…cursed. Cursed, bound, punished, whatever. The situation was that she had died. She didn’t wake up, that much she knows from the incredibly

huge blank in her memory from falling down the stairs, getting stabbed, and then the next thing she knows she has a mom.

From their experiments, she knows that it takes her a few hours to wake up, not a few years and having to go through the process of being reborn.

She blinks.

So does that mean –

She stands from her bed and nearly falls when the foam moves under her feet.

Tony can be reborn. Tony can live again! She just needs to find him and –

She wasn’t reborn right away. Maybe Tony had to die too before everything started up again?

Paige sets her jaw and clenches her fist.

It was time to plan her own death.

*

Getting a gun isn’t that hard when there’s one in the house. She’s surprised Harry still kept the one from years ago. The one he’d tried to quit everything with.

Getting rid of Robin, however, was harder.

It’s times like these when she regrets even goading him to admit he was murderous in the first place.

He kicks her door down when one turn reveals it’s locked. She fails to pull the trigger when he grabs her wrist and squeezes it until she feels it crack. The gun clatters to the floor and he grabs her other arm before she can claw at him, knees her back and pushes her down. Paige growls, screams and thrashes. Just like last time, it’s futile.

Harry and Manny run into the room seconds later. Harry kicks the gun away from her and Manny holds down her shoulders.

Paige gives out an angry roar and kicks her legs up.

“What were you _doing?!”_ Harry yells.

“What do you think?” she snarls, “Trying to die!”

“Why – why would you even do that?”

She tucks her head close to her chest and laughs, hysterical. The boys’ hold on her loosens as they both frown in confusion. Paige uses the opportunity to pull her arms away from them. She tries to

push herself off the ground, but her broken wrist gives out and she grits her teeth in pain, stopping her laughter.

Robin moves to kneel next to her as she chooses to lie on her side instead.

She barks another laugh, “I remember, you know. I remember.”

Harry frowns. Paige snaps her head to his direction, “I remember the first time I ripped your heart out from your chest and it was still beating. I remember the time I fed you cake with human organs for your birthday.” Harry pales and backs away a bit. Paige turns to Robin, grabs him by the tie and hisses, “I remember your _dreams._ ”

“You’re back,” Robin mutters, bug-eyed as the rest of them. Paige grins and moves her hand to his neck, nails digging into his throat.

Manny pulls her away from him. Robin coughs and rubs his throat, “Welcome back, bitch.”

She clicks her tongue, “Glad to be back. How are the murders coming up?”

“Wait, why would you want to kill yourself? Is that – even Tony –” flinch “- didn’t go this far when you died first!” Harry says.

She reaches for the gun and he blocks her. She sets her jaw, “How long did he last?”

Harry blinks, “What?”

“How long until he died – the first time.”

The man opens his mouth, hesitates and swallows, “A f-few months.”

“A few – ” Paige glares at him, “Why just a few months?!”

“He didn’t kill himself, if that’s what you’re asking,” Harry’s hands are shaking, “He…got run over by a truck. Hit and run.”

The images of limbs mangled and torn beyond recognition flash in her head. She shouldn’t feel sick. She’s been the cause of those scenes many times before but – this was different. He died. Actually died. Heart stopped, eyes closed, body rotted.

“Why’d he get run over?”

Tony’s not that stupid. One of these idiots probably pushed him into the traffic so they could get rid of him.

Robin’s the one who answers her, “Because of you.”

*

They keep everything that she can use to end herself away from her. All the knives are hidden; the medicine cabinet is emptied; the gun is permanently discarded. Nobody lets her cook for fear of her poisoning herself and them. She spends most of the nights screaming and pounding at her door that’s locked from the outside, demanding that they let her do what she wants to do.

It’s not being suicidal. She just wants to see him again.

“And what makes you think your plan is going to work, huh?” Harry stands by her doorway, “For all we know, this could be a one-time thing. You die once, you get reborn once. You mess it up and there are no second chances.”

She freezes and her eyes start to widen.

“For all we know, you could die here and you’re not following him anywhere because that’s it.”

She…didn’t really think of that. She had focused on the possibility that once she died, they could be born once again and meet and maybe this time, not mess it up. Maybe make some people pay.

Paige snaps her head to him, “You really think I’d bother with this petty human life without him around?”

*

They do a good job for five years.

But then they have to pull the plug and Paige hopes with all of her (disgustingly human) heart that there really was another cycle after this.

*

“Where is he?”

“Paige, calm down.”

“No, where is he, Manny – I need to see him.”

“Paige – ”

“Just tell me where he is!”

Manny sighs.

“He drowned.”

It’s the second time she’s remembered too late and couldn’t tell him.

Paige clutches her head and screams at the top of her lungs.

*

“Can you just leave me the _fuck_ alone?!”

Harry doesn’t budge from where he’s standing. Paige sweeps the desk with her arm and the papers and lamp loudly crash to the ground. “Fuck, just leave me alone, _Harry!_ ”

He still doesn’t move. And that pitying look on his face is something she really, really wants to rip off until he bleeds. She wants to gouge out his eyes, wants to flay him and tear out his veins.

She picks the pen off the ground, flings herself at him, sending both of them hitting the floor and stabs him over and over. It’s hard, with just flimsy human strength, but after a few stabs, she starts breaking skin and muscle. Ink and blood seep into the man’s clothes.

But Harry isn’t even retaliating. He hisses and yells out in pain, but he doesn’t do anything to push her off or to stop her. He just lets her carve into his chest, and she’ll gladly take the opportunity to remove his heart from his body. At least the next time she gets back, there’ll only be two humans to deal with.

She doesn’t stop until his shirt is torn open with blood and ink crusting at the edges. His flesh is drenched in black and filled with holes uneven in size and depth. If she could, she’d pour caustic ink all over his wounds just to make him scream more. She plunges the broken pen one last time even though Harry’s long stopped moving.

Paige ducks her head and grits her teeth as the first bead of clear, hot liquid drops from her eye.

She bunches the fabric of the man’s shirt in her fists and hunches over. Why was it that every time she remembered, she was always too late? And it was actually going well this time. It was – it was her fault.

If she could have just learned how to swim.

If she knew how to swim and he wouldn’t have had to look for her in the wreck of the submerged house and get trapped. He wouldn’t have had to promise he was going to get out _just go and find the others, I’ll be right after you. I just need to get my legs out first_ only to break that promise.

The corpse under her moves and the blood makes her slide down until she’s on his lap when he sits up. Harry wraps his arms around her and doesn’t say anything as she continues to cry.

*

_They’re standing in the middle of the court, hands and feet bound. Paige slowly looks up to the judge, head strangely heavy and eyelids struggling to keep open. They’re speaking the verdict. It’s always the same every time._

_To be bound up. To eliminate sin from their world. They were to be cursed. This judgment shall be on them._

_She wants to plead, but her voice isn’t working. The next time she blinks, everything is in red and black and Tony is nowhere to be found._

Waking up feels just like dying.

*

“Do you think she’s going to do it?”

“Maybe. She was right after all, what’re we going to say that’s going to stop her now?”

Paige keeps her mouth shut as she stands near the kitchen, back pressed to a wall, listening to their voices as they speak. They weren’t letting her cook again so one of them had to wake up early to fix their food. One she could have handled. But today there were two of them and they could easily stop her from getting the knives. Even if she did manage to kill them, she didn’t know how fast they revived – it could be different from her and Tony.

“Why are we even trying to stop her?” she hears Robin ask.

Harry stops moving, “Robin.”

“If she dies now, the cycle is going to start over. Both of them are going to get new human meatsuits, meet, we’re going to be the chaperones as always – happy ending for everybody.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“But what if this time, it actually works, huh?” the sound of the knife hitting the chopping board repeatedly. Damn it, why did he have to get the knives? “What if this was a failed scenario by their higher-ups back at that court and they’re rewriting the story like a trial and error?”

“They’re playing with their lives!”

Paige clenches her fists. Yeah, they were. And once she could manage to get Tony back and make him remember, they were going to pay.

“Oh yeah, well, I don’t exactly remember anyone protesting when they played with our lives!” Clatter. Slap of hand on counter. Silence.

“I don’t see you protesting either.”

“Don’t you _fucking_ say that.” Robin snarls, “I didn’t do anything out of line.”

“Yes, you did. You helped them more than once!”

“And you didn’t? Who’s the one who has the most sympathy for them out of all three of us? Who’s winning the Stockholm Syndrome award of the century, Harry? And you’re telling me I’m fucked up?”

“It’s called knowing how to be merciful!”

“And it’s called me trying to sort out my sanity in the middle of bloodshed while keeping all three of us together! What I did, I did to keep myself from falling apart and I hid it from you so you wouldn’t walk away because hell knows you had a lot on your plate that you tried to swallow a bullet, Harry!” Creak, _crash!_ Plates breaking on the floor. Paige inhales sharply.

Another pause.

“If she wants to follow him, then I’m helping her.”

“Robin!”

“I’m done with this.”

Paige’s nails tear through her palm and draw blood.

*

_They’re standing in the middle of the court._

_Paige raises her head sluggishly._

_The verdict is spoken._

_“Execution.”_

*

Her hands are shaking badly. They feel cold. Her world is spinning. Her throat feels like it’s filling up.

Paige shakily crawls to the edge of her bed and vomits.

Whoever said taking sleeping pills to die in their sleep being peaceful was a _liar._

This is the third time she’s vomited and it feels like weeks since she’s swallowed the entire bottle, but she’s still not dead. Instead everything is ringing, the ceiling is on the floor and her stomach is eating itself. Her lip is quivering and she’s shaking from the chills running through her body. She grips the covers of her bed and breathes heavily as she slumps back onto the bed.

Bile rises up. She barely makes it to the edge and throws up again.

Paige retches until her throat hurts. She can’t see anything clearly, but she’s sure she’s not throwing up blood no matter how much it feels like there’s glass inside her neck. She finishes and places her forehead on her blanket, groaning.

Her eyes are throbbing. The cramps in her stomach are getting worse. Her palms are sweaty and she still hasn’t stopped shaking.

In a moment of hysteria, she thinks of writing a letter to her mom in this life but stops short when she thinks about how she was going to explain this. And she wasn’t really the woman’s child anyway. She was just knitted in the woman’s womb.

Gag. Throw up. Lie on the bed again, breathing hard.

She starts shaking violently.

She wants to scream that it hurts. She wants to stop and find another way to get out of this faster. She can’t control her body as it spasms.

The banging on her door is just white noise in the background as she continues to convulse. They’re calling her name, but she’s blocked her room with all of the other furniture so they wouldn’t be able to get in.

Should she say sorry? Maybe not.

Maybe she should say thanks, though. They did her a few favors in this life.

But she has to do this.

“Paige!”

That sounds like him. No – she follows up quickly. That’s Harry. He’s – he’s not –

_“How long until twelve?”_

_Tony paused for a bit, “Eight seconds.”_

_“Ah,” she smiled, “Seven.”_

_And then six._

_Immediately, fireworks ripped through the sky, whistling in their wake and meeting their demise as they exploded in a shower of multiples hues and patterns. People cheered, bells rang, children awed at the sight and friends hugged each other for another Christmas together._

_Tony’s eyes were wide, as at the same time that had all happened, Paige grabbed the sides of his head and mashed their lips together._

_When she broke away, he was still frozen in place. She grinned, “Midnight kiss?”_

“Paige!” Harry yells at the other side of the door, “Paige, open this door right now! What are you doing?!”

_I would if I could, she thinks. But she won’t stop shaking and it hurts it hurts it hurts –_

_“You call a child’s broken mind wonderful?”_

_“There’s beauty in broken things,” Paige stands on her toes, pulls her hand away and leans over so that her mouth is by his ear._

The banging stops and she hears her door start to break as they try to kick it down.

“Go climb the window outside!”

“I can’t – ”

“Just try!”

****_Maybe I’ve been here before_  
I know this room; I’ve walked this floor   
I used to live alone before I knew you 

_When he moves forward, she steps back accordingly, matching him step for step without breaking eye contact. Her previous, small, enamored smile is turning into a smug one._

They won’t be able to help her. Even she can’t help herself. There’s the sourness in her mouth again and she tries to get to the edge of her bed and vomit but she can’t. Everything is going dark and their voices are going distant.

In that moment she feels like time slows down. Like it’s pitying her and giving her a drawn out last moment to say what she has to say, except she can’t open her mouth.

I’m sorry, Tony, for not being able to tell you in time.

I’m sorry, mom, but I’m not your kid.

I’m sorry, Tony, for killing you twice.

I swear I’ll be faster in the next life.

I –

promise - I’ll -

_“Execution.”_

_Paige snaps her head up and screams defiance._

I –

pro –

m i

s

e


End file.
